Roland Graf

Associate Professor, School of Art & Design

Contact

Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Personal Website

Curriculum Vitae

Dipl. Ing. (MSc equivalent), Vienna University of Technology, 2002

Biography

Roland Graf is a media artist, design researcher, and inventor. He collaborates across many disciplines to design platforms and interactive systems that reframe the body and interactivity in the built environment. His current research focuses on the benefits of play and playful exploration of emerging technologies to prototype and build more inclusive and desirable futures.

Graf is a co-founder of the artist collective Assocreation. His art and technology research initiatives at the University of Michigan include: Daylight Media Lab, a collaboration with material scientists and engineers exploring sunlight as a medium for interactive outdoor media systems; Internet of Shoes (IoS), a sensory networking platform for street-level interactions in collaboration with engineers of embedded wireless technologies. His most recent research with computer engineers, iGYM, is an inclusive augmented reality system that enables people with different abilities to play and exercise together, funded by the U-M Exercise & Sport Science Initiative. It received the Best Paper Award in the proceedings of CHI Play 2019.

Throughout his career, Graf has worked in multiple creative domains ranging from art and urban interventions to architecture and product design. His individual and collaborative work has been exhibited internationally and received national and international awards, patents, and recognition, including: the Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival for the street video game Solar Pink Pong, the Prix Ars Electronica Distinction in the Category of Interactive Art for the telematic sidewalk Bump, Winner of the National Play Everywhere Design Challenge with the urban intervention Brightmoor Runway, Feldmark licensed to the German retailer Magazin, Slim Jim at the Milan Design Week, and Solo Exhibition Assocreation – taste it! at the Vienna Künstlerhaus, k/haus Galerie.

Since relocating to the USA in 2011, Graf has collaborated with communities at the heart of Michigan’s postindustrial society on public art and design/build projects such as “Camp Take Notice” in Ann Arbor, and “Black Men for Social Change” in Flint.

Before joining the Stamps School of Art & Design faculty, Graf was Assistant Professor in the Department of Spatial and Sustainable Design at the Vienna University of Technology.